The Case of the Murdered Madame (Prologue Books)

by Henry, Kane,

  I forgot about Johnny Hays, thinking of the expression on Trina’s face, of her dark eyes, of that secret little smile, and, as I clicked the flashlight again, the little shiver was still pleasant — but then the shiver remained and all the pleasantness went out of it.

  A quiet voice said, “Put that light out.”

  I put the light out. I was back in a graveyard working at my trade. I stood still and said nothing. I saw nobody.

  The quiet voice said, “You Chambers?”

  “I’m not J. J. J. Tompkins.”

  “Never mind the jokes. Turn around and stay around.”

  “Yes, sir.” I turned around and stayed around.

  “Now reach your arm back and hand me that package.”

  “You’re a little premature, pal.”

  “What?”

  “You’re supposed to give me the word, pal. This is a real eccentric bit, but my client is a real eccentric lady, and she’s rich enough to afford her eccentricities. You’re supposed to say a name. So, say it.”

  “Abner Reed.”

  “That’s the jackpot answer, pal. Reach and grab your prize.”

  There were soft footsteps. Then somebody reached and somebody grabbed. “Very good,” somebody said. “Now stay the way you are. And stay like that for the next five minutes.”

  But I didn’t stay the way I was for the next five minutes. Fast count, I’d say there were two reasons for that. First, five minutes in a graveyard, in the middle of the night, after your business is finished, is like, say, five years on the French Riviera. And second, I’m blessed (or is it cursed) with a large lump of curiosity. I turned, and I didn’t turn a second too soon, because I ran smack up against Trina’s “precise moment.” Somewhere through the faint fog there was enough light to put a glint on metal — and I dropped — as five shots poured over me — and then — nothing.

  Running feet … and nothing.

  I got up, but I didn’t even try going after him. The guy was gone. Go search for a needle in a haystack. You go — but at least there’s a chance. The needle is inanimate and it is in the haystack. But searching for a gunman in a graveyard … no, sir. I’ll take the needle in the haystack.

  Anyway, I brushed at my clothes and I got out of there and I was damn glad to get out of there. My car was parked about a quarter of a mile down, and when I slammed the door behind me and pushed down all the buttons, I permitted myself the luxury of a couple of real deep-down shudders, and then I turned over the motor and I went away from there, fast. And when the clustered lights of civilization finally beamed up before me, I visited the most civilized place I could think of — a tavern — where I had three rapid constituents of resuscitation, and a slow chaser. Then I went back to the car, and my progress toward Manhattan was much less precipitate and much more thoughtful.

  II

  Names chased around in my mind like executives after office girls. There was Trina Greco, there was Johnny Hayes, there was Nick Darrow, there was Florence Fleetwood Reed. I gave the first three a quick-think so I’d have time to concentrate on the last and then perhaps hash them all up together. I was relaxed now and moving without hurry. I was heading for the Reed mansion at Gramercy Park and it figured for about three quarters of an hour.

  Trina Greco. A dish for a king and I make no pretense at royalty. I had seen her once, about six months back, dancing at the Copa (and had admired her from afar) but I had met her at a party about two weeks ago (admiring her from very near) and I had commenced a small but concentrated campaign. She had quit the night club (which was bread and butter) and was now rehearsing with a ballet company, for which she had been trained most of her life. I knew very little about her but I was avidly trying to learn much more.

  Johnny Hays. A good-looking kid who had been infected by slick-type movie-heavies in his early youth. A no-brains young man who would wind up one day neatly dressed but grotesquely sprawled in a gutter with a generous portion of his intestines splattered beside him. Meanwhile he was a killer-diller with the ladies, and he drew his pay within one of the varied echelons which went to make up the intricate layers of empire of one Nick Darrow.

  Nick Darrow, now — very much more important. Brains and judgment and cunning and the conscience of a crawling lobster. Neat, and young enough, and at the height of his ambition. Politically well-connected, reasonably cautious, and one of the ten top narcotics outlets in the United States. He was the owner, at present, of the Club Trippa on Madison Avenue.

  And now Florence Fleetwood Reed — completely removed from any of the others. Until late this past afternoon, unknown to me, except through legend. Cafe society, real society, and snob-rich to the tune of a hundred million dollars inherited from a five-and-dime pappy who had passed to his ancestors leaving only little Florence as his sole beneficiary. She was reported to be inordinately shrewd in business, stuffily stingy and weirdly eccentric. Young, beautiful, headstrong, imperious, she had been married once, a long time ago, to a film actor, then divorced, and recently, about six months ago, re-married.

  Late in the afternoon, after my tavern-vacation with Trina, I’d had a call at the office … from Florence Fleetwood Reed. I had been summoned to her home and I had answered the summons. I had met her alone, at her Gramercy Park house — a firm-hipped blonde with a lot of control and hard grey eyes within an almost imperceptible network of crepe-like wrinkles. She had informed me, quite coldly, that I had the honor of having been selected as a final cog in a peculiar business transaction. I was told to refrain from asking questions. I was to return to the house at eleven o’clock, was to pick up a package, was to go to a cemetery on Long Island, was to find a tombstone marked J. J. J. Tompkins, was to wait there until somebody came who asked for me by name and who mentioned the name Abner Reed. Then I was to turn the package over to him and return to Gramercy Park and collect my fee. Said fee was to be one thousand dollars. Time of appointment at J. J. J. Tompkins’ resting place, twelve-thirty, and wait if the caller is late.

  Well, sir, as you know, I am a private detective which is synonymous with anything confidential including cockeyed-type messenger boy (if the fee is large enough). In my business — if the client is proper — you ask no questions and you offer no tidbit of wisdom, pro or con: you take your assignment, and when you leave it, you forget about it, unless an acute or wildly unforeseeable incident occurs. Gunplay in a graveyard, when your client is the esteemed Florence Fleetwood Reed, is both acute and wildly unforeseeable.

  Was the gunplay, then, connected with my client, or was it mixed up with Trina, Hays and Darrow? It was, for certain, a vastly populated cemetery, but it was just as certain that I was the only one present upon whom bullets could have even the slightest effect, so, as I turned into the driveway of the Reed home, I was grimly determined to breach the canons of my profession and fling questions until a couple of appropriate answers bounced back.

  III

  A sleepy-eyed maid ushered me into the downstairs living room and vanished. I waited alone and then a door opened and Florence Fleetwood Reed strode in and, striding behind her in measured steps like a couple of pallbearers — a tall silver-haired man and a tall silver-haired woman.

  “All right, Mr. Chambers?” inquired Florence Fleetwood Reed.

  “Yes, Mrs. Reed.”

  “You made your delivery?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Reed.”

  She had grey eyes and blonde hair and a patrician nose with easily quivering nostrils. She was in her young thirties, thin-lipped and severe, but quite good-looking, her full figure ramrod-straight but a bit bulgy in spots if you’re inclined to be critical. She lifted a hand over a shoulder and introduced me to the pallbearers. “My uncle and aunt. Mr. Harry Fleetwood and Mrs. Ethel Fleetwood.”

  The man smiled and said, “Uncle Harry.”

  The lady smiled and said, “Aunt Ethel.”

  I smiled and said, “How do you do?”

  The man was about sixty, hawk-nosed and yellow-toothed, with a deep gruff vo
ice and a slow precise enunciation. The lady had a round smooth face and a porcelain smile and a more flirtatious sparkle to her eye than double the girls half her age.

  Mrs. Reed snapped her fingers at Uncle Harry and Uncle Harry drew an envelope from his jacket pocket.

  “Oh excuse me,” Mrs. Reed said. “That was rather a one-sided introduction. This is Peter Chambers.”

  Now Uncle Harry shook hands with me. “How do, Mr. Chambers.”

  And now Aunt Ethel shook hands with me. Her fingers lingered in mine and she said ever so softly, “You’re sweet.” She said it with her back turned to the others. Then she pouted red lips at me and turned away.

  Mrs. Reed said, “That envelope is for Mr. Chambers, Uncle Harry. Would you please give it to him?”

  “Certainly, my dear.” He bowed and handed it to me.

  I took it, said, “What is it?”

  “Your fee,” Mrs. Reed said. “As per agreement. One thousand dollars.”

  I put it into my pocket. I said, “For what?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Fee for what? What’s this all about, Mrs. Reed?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Look, lady. After I completed your cockeyed business transaction, somebody took a couple of pot-shots at me. Could be part of your business, or it could be some business of my own. Before I go to the cops with it — I thought I’d inquire.”

  “Cops?” Uncle Harry’s bushy eyebrows came down over his nose like a couple of birds perching on a twig. “No.”

  Mrs. Reed echoed that. “No. Please, no.” The nostrils quivered and for the first time agitation showed on her face.

  Right then I knew I was in on a deal and some of the flop-sweat shook off me. High society, thousand dollars fee, mansion on Gramercy Park, lady worth a hundred million bucks — suddenly I shook it all off and I was treading on familiar ground. Because something around here stank. Out loud.

  “Bullets,” I said. “Were they part of your business?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Then what’s the objection to my going to the cops?”

  “Well … because …” She turned and looked beseechingly at her uncle and aunt.

  Aunt Ethel continued to smile pleasantly but Uncle Harry coughed, grunted, and hoisted the eyebrows. “I think you ought to tell him, Florence. Since he was selected for so delicate a mission, he must be a man of character.”

  “Tell me what?” I said.

  “Tell you” — Aunt Ethel was near again — “why you shouldn’t at this particular time, young man, take your troubles to the police.”

  “My troubles,” I said, “seem to be your troubles.” I went to Mrs. Reed. “Then the bullets were your business, weren’t they?”

  “No. I’m certain they weren’t. There wouldn’t be any purpose …”

  “Time,” Aunt Ethel said, “for a drink. Brandy for me. What’ll it be, please. I’m serving.”

  Nothing for Florence Fleetwood Reed and nothing for Peter Chambers but Aunt Ethel and Uncle Harry buried their noses in the bouquet of over-sized snifter-glasses into which Aunt Ethel had poured as though she were a bartender who hated the boss. Florence Reed said, “Have you any idea, Mr. Chambers, what was in that package?”

  “Goulash. For ghosts.”

  Very funny. Mrs. Reed looked blank. Uncle Harry looked sad. But Aunt Ethel winked shyly and smiled. There was plenty of life in old Aunt Ethel, far too much life for Uncle Harry, no question.

  “Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Mrs. Reed said.

  It went by me the first time like a jet-plane in a hurry. Mildly I said, “Pardon?”

  “Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “What?”

  “Three quarters of a million,” Uncle Harry explained, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “In thousand dollar bills.”

  My head swiveled to Mrs. Reed. “Look. You’ve got a reputation for being … well … two things … stingy and eccentric. Stingy, that’s none of my business. Eccentric, that fits in with this. You’re also supposed to have a lot of good old horse-sense. So, business transactions in the middle of the night, even in a graveyard, nobody’d put it past you, not even me, nobody’d think twice about it, you’re supposed to have pulled a couple of real wing-dings in your time, but — ”

  “That wasn’t exactly a business transaction, Mr. Chambers.”

  “No? Then what the hell was it?”

  “It was a delivery of ransom money.”

  “Delivery? Ransom money? You mean to say that you’ve involved me in some kind of cockeyed kidnapping?”

  Aunt Ethel said, “That’s what she means to tell you, young man. And a nice young man like you.”

  “Quiet, Aunt Ethel.” Mrs. Reed touched my arm. “You weren’t exactly involved, sir. You were an instrument of delivery. And your name was suggested to us for exactly that purpose.”

  “Instrument, huh? The police know about this?”

  “No.”

  Sarcasm blurred my voice. “Expect to inform them?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  I headed for the brandy bottle. I poured and I drank brandy like it was a chaser for bourbon as Aunt Ethel nodded in approval. Then I smacked down the glass, turned, said, “Look. What happened here? Let’s have it, huh? Let’s stop with this casual routine. Let’s have the story. Instrument, huh?”

  Florence Reed went to a divan, flopped as wearily as a bordello beauty after a strenuous evening, lowered her head and touched delicate fingers to her temples. “Last night. It seems a year ago. Last night, he went out, my husband, he went out for a newspaper.”

  “What time?”

  “About ten o’clock. He … he didn’t return. It’s happened before. He’d step into a bar, become involved in a discussion, or just drink in the company of others. Anyway, I went up to bed, fell asleep, and when I awoke, suddenly … it was two o’clock … two in the morning. He wasn’t back yet and I became … apprehensive. Just then, the downstairs bell rang. I thought it was he … that he had left his keys. I slipped into a dressing gown quickly … I hoped the servants hadn’t awakened … and I opened the door myself. It was Uncle Harry.”

  “I think,” Uncle Harry said, “I ought to take over at this point.”

  I said, “Okay with me.”

  “We live nearby, Mr. Chambers, on lower Fifth Avenue. At about one-thirty last night, I received a phone call. It was from Abner … Florence’s husband … Abner Reed. His voice sounded somewhat muffled, and for a moment, if you’ll forgive me, I had an idea that he was inebriated. But that idea was quickly dispelled. He informed me that he was talking to me with a gun pointed at his head. He told me that he’d been mugged, slugged, rendered unconscious, and kidnapped. Naturally, I was frightfully perturbed.”

  “Naturally.”

  “He said that he didn’t know where he was, that he was blindfolded, that this phone call had been made for him and then he had been put on the wire, and that he was merely repeating what he had been told to say.”

  “And what was that?”

  “That I was to come here and inform Florence, and that there would be another call, here, in the morning. And, that if the police were notified, he’d be killed. Then there was a click, and the wire was dead.”

  “Then?”

  “I came here quickly — my wife was to dress and meet me here which she did — and the three of us sat up until morning. At eight o’clock in the morning, the second call came through.”

  “Abner again?”

  Mrs. Reed said, “Yes.”

  “You sure it was he, Mrs. Reed?”

  “No question. He sounded tired and … beaten … physically spent … but it was he. Anyway, to make a long story short, the arrangements were made … and you must have quite a reputation in certain spheres, Mr. Chambers … because your name was given to him to give to me … as the one who could be trusted as �
� I believe the word is … intermediary. You know the rest.”

  “That all?”

  She stood up. She tried to control it, but she was trembling. She crossed her arms over her chest in a child-like hug of one’s self. Hurriedly Uncle Harry put his glass away and went to her, touching her elbow lightly. She sighed, said, “It was promised that he’d be returned to us during this night.”

  I shook my head and softly I said, “Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “I … I’m regarded as, well, a rather frugal person.” Tears brimmed over and spoiled her face, but it didn’t break up, there was no grimace, the face remained haughty and expressionless. “But … but … this is different. I love my husband. We’ve only been married six months …”

  Uncle Harry said, “I think you ought to go upstairs now, Florence.”

  I said, “But you are going to notify the cops about this, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” She leaned heavily on Uncle Harry. “Tomorrow morning. Whether he’s returned to me or not. I’ve got to give it a chance … and then I’ll go to the police, either way.” She shivered once, violently. “I was warned … we were being watched … that if we went to the police … or called them … that they would know … that they … they would kill him.”

  “I understand, Mrs. Reed. Maybe those bullets were part of my business. Either way, I’ll keep my nose clean. This is your affair entirely. Now, easy does it, ma’am.”

  Uncle Harry led her to a door. He turned, said, “Ethel, you’ll please show Mr. Chambers out,” then he turned back and they were gone.

  And Ethel came to me, still smiling and still smelling of brandy. Aunt Ethel’s silver hair was deceptive. Aunt Ethel was no youngster but she wasn’t senile. Aunt Ethel was a beautiful woman, mature but not aged, with a curved-lipped pleading red mouth. Aunt Ethel wore a blue dress which matched her eyes and Aunt Ethel’s blue dress was cut deep in front and a copious portion of fine cream-skinned bosom was exposed. She took me out to the small dim vestibule and as she leaned toward me I realized that she wasn’t wearing too much more than the blue dress. And now Aunt Ethel wasn’t smiling any more. Aunt Ethel said, “I’m drunk.”